Although many adults maintain good hearing into older adulthood, large numbers of older adults manifest age-related hearing declines that significantly interfere with comprehension and memory for speech. Few issues are as important to the quality of life of older adults as the ability to recall heard information, whether it is instructions from medical care providers, verbal instructions on how to complete forms, or the latest news of family and friends. Natural speech is rapid, ranging from 90 words per minute (wpm) for thoughtful conversation, to rates far in excess of 200 wpm. Added to this high input rate is the fact that speech is very often accompanied by background distraction. Both factors are known to be especially disruptive to older adults. ? ? This application centers on an interdisciplinary approach combining expertise from cognitive psychology and audiology to the understanding of how age-related cognitive factors interact with agerelated hearing loss (presbycusis) in memory for speech. In order to separate the effects of cognitive aging and hearing acuity, four groups of adults will be tested: older adults with age-related hearing loss, older adults with good hearing in the speech range, young adults with hearing loss in the speech range similar to that of the older adults, and a young adult group with good hearing. The research will focus on (1) the effects of rapid speech and auditory distraction on memory for spoken messages, (2) how the features of the spoken messages interact with age and hearing loss, and (3) the extent to which the use of context can be flexibly employed by older adults with poor hearing as distinct from reflecting an enduring perceptual """"""""style"""""""" that may not always be appropriate. On the theoretical level one of the goals will be to test the hypothesis that the extra effort expended on lower level perception of speech can draw resources that would ordinarily be available for """"""""down-stream"""""""" processes such as memory encoding for later recall. On the applied level, the data obtained will be valuable for developing guidelines for tests of hearing that are sensitive to the special needs of older adults.
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